Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-L] [SPAM] Re: multitasking



Of course most college teachers never hear about or train in pedagogy.
Actually pre-college teachers just learn about pedagogy without actually
learning it. They learn about LD without gaining some real understanding.
This is a PBS video which can be ordered from PBS, or Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-This-F-A-T-City-Workshop/sim/B000KT0UJC/2
Some places charge as much as $65, but it should be in a local library. Or
you might be able to borrow from your local Orton dyslexia society. You
might be able to find a cheap copy. There is a companion book, but the
video is so compelling that I would only go for the book after seeing the
video.

While the video is aimed at understanding LD, everyone should know that
there are LD students in virtually all classes and they are often
undiagnosed. They can perform better than regular students because they
have to be very intelligent to get that far and still remain hidden. But
even normal people often exhibit some aspects of LD. And there are many
like me who have mild LD which has a big effect on certain types of tasks.

We all live in our own private universe and tacitly assume that others have
the same types of perceptions, but it is not true. The trap that schools
and teachers have fallen into is assuming that students learn the same way
they did. Most teachers were atypical and their experiences do not apply to
their students. You have to learn what it is like to be different, and even
then you can not fully understand. The author of the series once told a
frustrated student "I understand what you are going through" and the
student said "No you don't, Mr. Lavoie!". At that point Lavoie realized
that he didn't truly understand, and can't truly understand what it is like.
He never said that type of thing again.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

Thnaks for sharing.

Never heard of this video. Can you please send the link? YouTube?


Phys-L@Phys-L.org writes:

Walking and chewing gum are relatively easy to do. So are
texting and
driving (sometimes), but mistakes can be fatal.

This is because the two tasks are automatic tasks. You can
do any number
of
automatic tasks at the same time. But you can only do 1
cognitive task
at a
time. The problem with driving and texting is that texting
is cognitive,
and driving while partially automatic requires attention.
Texting reduces
the attention, so you really can not drive safely at the same time as
texting.

The video "How difficult can this be" highlights how this
works.